Public Works Builts on The Tape-beatles, But Charts a New Course

‘Matter’: The Debut CD by Public Works

Hear some
sample tracks
from our recordings

DISCOGRAPHY FILMOGRAPHY
Audio • Minneapolis Summit (MiniCD) • Numbers (9-inch EP) • Good Times • Matter • The Grand Delusion • Music with Sound • A subtle buoyancy of pulse
Video • Minneapolis Summit (Mini VideoCD) • Matter (video) • The Grand Delusion (video)

Pictured at left is the cover the CD Matter, a rollicking digital effort that plumbs the depths of the public psyche, and then shares its findings. The techniques used are similar to those of their archetypes, The Tape-beatles; the work falls somewhere in the crack between music and audio art. Writing in Dream Magazine, George Parsons says:

Here it’s a vaster panorama, the nature of life, matter, existence; what turns the walnut into the walnut tree? Identity, self-image or just stunningly stoney constructions that fill the center of your mind with swirling unfolding or driving eerie momentum fueled by psychic somnambulistic frenzy and an organic/synthetic flow of energy and intention, tempered by the always essential ability to make intelligent (or lucky/intuitive) choices.

Public Works constructs a soundtrack using looped samples which are subtly varied to maintain the listener’s interest, while at the same time maintaining a steady-state chaos of arresting rhythm. Over this, they layer various effects and spoken texts from other sources, which say what they mean, or are made to say what they are not saying, but nonetheless we think they really mean. Dig? It is by turns, heady or visceral, funny or grand, somber or danceable, grave or uplifting.